IVF by Ela Brave and Iván Brave

“This is your sperm cell,” the nurse practitioner says. He draws an oval with a squiggly line on the white crunchy paper of the medical exam table. Meanwhile I’m annoyed and feeling like a dumb lab rat.

“Sometimes the cap is missing,” he adds, dashing away at the top of the oval with the pen, even puncturing the paper. There’s a med student next to him, taking notes.

“Yeah,” I say, after a lull, “but you don’t know if my issue is the sperm cap or something else.”

“Not without another test.”

“But we ran three tests already, one for DNA fragmentation, one for morphology, for whatever, and now you are telling me there is another test?”

The nurse nods his head. The med student blushes. They bid me good luck.

“IVF is a good option,” he says, holding the doorframe. “The sperm cell doesn’t need a cap if it is being injected directly into the egg. I’ll let the doctor know you are ready to see him.”

“Thanks,” I say.

The junior reads his watch. “Should be here any minute.”

Ten minutes later, the senior doctor strolls by. The one who, after multiple visits, would look me in the eyes and tell me he does not know the cause.

“What happened?” he asks, gesturing towards the exam table.

I look at the surviving oval and squiggle, amid the torn paper. “Wasn’t me.”

It really wasn’t.

Author, poet, translator, and educator, Iván Brave lives in his hometown of Houston, Texas with his collaborator and their son. His vision is to see the next generation of Houstonians create, read more, and thrive. Learn more at www.ivanbrave.com.

Ela Brave is from the coastal town of Constanța, Romania, where Ovid famously spent his last years in exile. Today, she works at a New York advertising agency that specializes in pharma, as an account supervisor. Her passions include dress-making, international cuisine, and family-building journeys.